The Long Way Home

When something is right, it is dreadfully obvious. It comes to you naturally, effortlessly – no pushing or pulling required. And as a matter of fact, when something truly is right, you don’t actually get to decide. It just happens and it usually comes when you least expect it.

Right things can’t be argued with, they aren’t rational, which is rather tricky for those of us with an affinity for logical decision-making.
Right things also can’t rbe stopped, no matter how much you might want to. Sure, you can be in denial, you can settle, you can stop taking action on the situation, but (if you’re lucky) it’s just a matter of time before you run into that right thing, making you realize how wrong the thing is you currently have in your life.

So really, spotting right things is easy! They instantly, inexplicably make you feel more whole than you did before you met that right thing. No decision making involved, no agonizing, no real wavering. It just is.
That doesn’t mean that right things are easy though. They’re not and they have a habit of turning your life upside down. And sometimes you meet a right thing at the wrong moment in time to come back to it years later to have a completely different experience.

Without fail though, right things come to you. They can’t be pushed or pulled or coerced, which is simultaneously incredibly liberating and frustrating.
As a matter of fact, usually you have to go through a whole series of wrong things, before you can even recognize the right one.
Nobody is born knowing their favorite _____ (fill in the blank noun) it involves experiencing many, before you even have a chance of recognizing the right one.

Being still enough to where you can hear yourself on this level, the nuances in these whispers, the irrational ways in which you feel more whole around something – that’s the tricky part.

The first and only time I’ve experienced a right thing in the places category was the first time I stepped foot on Anguilla.
Before that moment, I never knew how “not quite at home” I felt in every place I had ever lived, including the place I was born and raised.

The problem with experiencing such a clear and loud “right thing” is that it ruins you. Nothing less will do. Or at the very least, you’re painfully aware of the inadequacy of everything else.

I knew when we moved to Anguilla 8 years ago that this island would be temporary – all things are.
This tiny island has been such a wonderful place to raise kids, but it never was going to be the right place for teenagers. I knew that from the start and I’ve hoped and prayed and pushed and pulled to find a new “right place” for us before the clock would catch up.

After spending months researching a place to move to – overlaying weather maps with “distance from major airport” charts, school, average age, political landscape and cost of living statistics, I’ve come up with nothing. Nada. Logic and data are failing me, which is a blow all on it’s own.

The truth is, you can’t force a right thing to happen, and certainly not on paper. You have to experience it, see how it makes you feel, and on the odd chance you are lucky enough to find that right thing, nothing else matters. Tear up that criteria chart – game over!

You know the joke about the guy who prays every day to win the lottery, to which God replies with “Help me here, buy a ticket!”?
I’ve abandoned searching for a new home on paper and am taking it to the road. The long way, to (hopefully) a new home. So with an open heart, observant eyes, way too many digital devices and all four kids – we’re about to embark on a 6 week road trip across the Eastern-ish part of the US.

And if we’re lucky, we will indeed find that right place for us all to move to next. Either way, it’ll be entirely obvious if and when we get there. No doubt about that.